Obama to Jewish Leaders in Private D.C. Meeting: Lay Off the Iran Deal, and I Will Lay Off You
On Tuesday, President Obama met with Jewish community leaders at the White House for two and a half hours to explain the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Agreement. “He spent 45 minutes, laying out deal, speaking without notes,” said one participant in attendance. “He argued why the deal is better than the alternatives, even as he acknowledged that Iran is not a good actor. The meeting was very emotional, everything was out on the table.”
The participant told me that some Jewish leaders in the meeting objected to how the administration characterized the JCPOA’s critics. “Words have consequences, and when they come from official sources, they can be even more dangerous,” he said the president was told. “The community worked hard to keep it from getting personal and didn’t make it specific to him. The president complained about the lobbying, and said some of the same people who brought you Iraq are opposing the Iran deal. He was told those characterizations are not accurate. Jewish lobbyists didn’t support the Iraq war.”